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Merfolk couldn’t fly. It was a well-known, widely accepted fact.
But merfolk couldn’t walk, run, or jump either for that matter, and yet there he was: strolling around the field to stretch his legs, running laps alongside his classmates to warm-up his muscles, hopping in place to get a worn-out broom to defy the laws of gravity— laws that existed for a reason, namely, to prevent flightless species from going extinct.
Because Azul Ashengrotto had mastered the wide array of movements necessary for life on land and, consequently, was now expected to conquer the skies.
Gritting his teeth, he lowered his gaze and resumed hopping in place, trying to ignore the faint itch gnawing at the end of his fingertips.
Steps, crushing the shriveled grass, getting closer. They were too steadfast to be from one of the small critters who inhabited the surrounding trees, too light to belong to the burly tyrant that had been appointed as their professor.
A student, then.
Which was rather unusual considering that the last time he checked, his classmates had been in the midst of practicing how to ride wind currents to their advantage, flocking together and obscuring the gray sky much like a shoal of fish in murky waters. Far away from him.
The person came to a stop a few feet to his right. Azul kept his gaze focused straight ahead. He had no time for rubbernecks and slackers, outside of business hours.
“You won’t get any better if you keep doing that,” stated a curt, familiar voice. “We’ve been over this many times, Azul. Even someone as stubborn as you must have figured that out by now.”
Azul whipped his head around so quickly that he felt two of his cervical joints pop. He paid it no heed.
“Why, good morning to you, Jamil-san,” he greeted, smile snapping back to its rightful place. “What a wonderful surpr—”
“Save the empty pleasantries for when you’ll actually have enough breath to spare.” The huff that slipped past his classmate’s lips was a clear indication of how fed up he was with Azul and his antics— which was awfully hypocritical of him, really, seeing as he was the one who chose to approach Azul in the first place. “And stop jumping around, you’re being ridiculous!”
Ridiculous? Him?
There were many absurd elements underlying the current situation, but he couldn’t fathom how even a single one of them could be attributed to him and his efforts. Efforts that, granted, had yet to bear any fruit, but nevertheless.
After all, it wasn’t his fault if his broom felt as responsive as a broken twig; if the idea of having his safety depend on a muscle-brained egomaniac wasn’t reassuring in the least; if Azul could count the number of merfolk able to get passing grades in PE on the fingers of one hand, because, clearly, the school board hadn’t taken into account the added set of hurdles that would befall upon the aquatic minority of its student population when they elected to make Flight a mandatory subject.
He didn’t voice any of those thoughts. Instead, he complied with the request and settled down, swallowing his rebuttal. It wasn’t like it would have helped him with his current predicament, anyway.
“Dear me,” he gasped, clasping his hands together in mock shock. “Have you forgotten already? There’s a flight exam at the end of the week.”
“Rest assured, I am well aware.”
“Then,” Azul went on, words rolling off his tongue like a cue ball on the green baize of a billiard table, “shouldn’t you be up there, practicing?”
Jamil’s dull scowl hardened into a glare that was both sharp and dangerous, but he didn’t take the bait. “Coach has asked me to keep an eye on you, to ensure you weren’t trying to purposely sprain your ankle in order to be exempted from said exam.”
“My, what an awful accusation to make about one of your dear classmates, especially when there are no precedents for it.”
“But there are.” Jamil set his broom aside and placed a hand on his hip. “I don’t remember seeing you at the cross-country race, back in November.”
“November…” Azul’s cheeks were starting to hurt. “I’m afraid that I was slightly indisposed at the time.” Overblotting took a lot out of someone, after all, as did trying to get his legs to stop fighting the effects of the Transmutation Medicine; but he wasn’t about to delve into such gruesome details. The last thing he wanted was to invoke pity.
Not that he had to worry about that. Those gray eyes were nothing if not intransigent.
“Whatever. You and your awful flying form are no longer a responsibility of mine.” Jamil took a couple of steps back before sitting down on the grass, with one knee tucked up near his chest. “Just make sure to not trip over your own feet.”
Azul placed a hand over his chest. “Your lack of trust in my athletic capabilities wounds me…” he lamented, the joviality in his tone eliciting an eye roll out of Jamil, “Although I must admit that it does warm my heart to see you this concerned over my well-being.”
“Believe me, I am most definitely not.”
Azul gave him one last smile, and resumed jumping.
While life at Night Raven College had proven to be challenging, adapting to it hadn’t been nearly as difficult as he had expected it to be when he first stepped out of his coffin.
Initially he had lain low, believing it unwise to prematurely show his hand in an academy that not only housed so many young prodigies, but also happened to be run by one of the most renowned magicians of their times. Merfolk’s survival in unknown waters depended on whether their bodies were sufficiently fit to allow for a hasty retreat before the danger could catch up to them, or alternatively, if their craftiness prevented them from being spotted in the first place, and Azul had mastered the art of blending in since a very young age.
But as time went on, he came to the underwhelming realization that college life, for all its hustle and bustle, bore a stronger resemblance to the plain tranquility of his hometown than to the frenzied struggle for survival that awaited those who dared to venture beyond its colorful reef. That the other students weren’t that different from the haughty, pretentious merkids he grew up alongside with; that the Headmaster was far from being the eldritch creature of darkness rumors made out to be; and that as long as he was on his best behavior and presented compelling arguments, even the strictest teacher — or in this case, the most troublesome — could be swayed into conceding small favors.
Which was why, for the fifth consecutive time that week, he found a key dangling from one of the potted plants surrounding the giant arch that marked the beginning of the path leading to the Spelldrive Arena.
Not the subtlest of hiding spots, but he’d take it over having to rummage through the mounds of hay piled up around the stables any day.
Azul picked it up and started making his way towards the smallest of the two buildings facing the sports field, idly tossing the key up in the air and flipping it over and over again.
Once inside, it took him a couple of minutes to get changed, and before long he found himself standing in the middle of the field, looking up at the sky— the same sky that in less than eight hours would be packed with antsy sophomores intent on squeezing in as much practice as they could before the flight trial. According to the data he had collected over the previous weeks, the test’s main goal was to assess a person’s control over the broom. Those who could finish the circuit within three minutes would be awarded bonus points, but even slower students would get passing marks provided they completed the track without going out of bounds.
Falling off or touching the ground whilst in the middle of the exercise would result in immediate disqualification, and the same fate would befall those who failed to take off in the first minute from the sound of the whistle.
No retakes allowed.
Azul lowered his head and positioned himself on top of the broom. He adjusted his grip on the handle, trying to keep a firm hold on the varnished wood without, as Floyd had once nagged him about, ‘squeezing’ it to death. Brooms weren’t exactly sentient beings, but they — similarly to wands and other foci — acted as conduits of magic, which made them susceptible to even the smallest of changes in their pilots’ energy flow.
In the end, it was all a matter of control. Of releasing the right amount of magic in smooth, continuous waves while willing one’s body to move in the desired direction.
Azul clenched his thighs, trying to keep the broom still while he wiped his palms on his tracksuit. Got back into position. Straightened his back. Breathed in.
As he exhaled, he called upon his magic, urging it to trickle downwards and seep into the handle.
Azul waited, feeling the broom gradually come to life under his fingers, the faint thrums of energy running along the wood in time with his own heartbeat. After a moment he leaned his weight forward, before rolling backwards on his heels to test the broom’s momentum and calibrate his magical input accordingly. Once that had been dealt with, he bent his knees and pushed himself up until the tips of his shoes were the only thing connecting him to the ground.
One final push and that link too was severed, leaving his legs kicking uselessly in the air.
It was a most peculiar feeling, moving without being able to find any sort of purchase. His classmates always talked about how beautiful and energizing it was to experience the freedom that came with flying, but as someone that had grown up expecting their movements to be met with some sort of resistance even in the stillest of waters, he couldn’t help but find the sudden lack of restrictions somewhat unnerving.
Flying and swimming couldn’t possibly be more different, and yet his body was reacting the same way it always did during those rare occasions when he was forced to lift his limbs from the seabed.
Azul swallowed down his instincts and brought his legs up, stabilizing his form.
There. Just like that, he had left the ground in approximately forty seconds. Next in the order of things was…
He glanced up. A handful of stars twinkled back at him in greeting. Cold, ethereal halos engulfed each and every one of them, as if trying to protect their brightness from the pitch black depths stretching around and beyond them.
Azul shook his head, breaking eye contact with that mesmerizing, albeit eerie spectacle.
It was fine. He wasn’t at the bottom of the ocean anymore. It was just him and the night sky in its vast, empty infinity.
Somehow, the thought didn’t bring him much solace.
But what he needed wasn’t solace: it was a passing grade on his report card, and in order to get it he had to fly higher. High enough to reach the obstacles Coach Vargas was going to summon, high enough to go past the treetops and be able to spot the statues of the Great Seven guarding the main street.
Thirteen meters off the ground. That was all it would take.
Azul’s personal record was six. It had taken him over one year to learn how to hover, and had figured out how to get the broom to actually move just last month. His aptitude for flight magic was, bluntly put, appalling, and there was virtually no way he’d be able to make up for his natural inadequacy in such a short notice; but this was his last chance, and he was going to do his darn best to at least reach the minimum height, even if he had to waste the whole night wobbling up and down the turf.
Ashengrotto! Fear not, I’ve already put together a remedial training session specifically tailored for you in case you flunk this exam!
He had to.
Poor Coach. Doesn’t he know that sometimes it’s better to leave lost causes alone?
He’d show them all.
Azul closed his eyes, placing a lid over those memories. It wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on assessments that, at any rate, were not that far from the truth. Instead, he started focusing on the flow of energy connecting him to the broom. It was uncannily effortless, the way magic flowed into the wretched vehicle, almost as if it were aware that the fuel it was receiving originated from an even bigger source and was thus intent on gobbling up every last drop of it.
The nerve.
It was his magic they were talking about here. The broom should have been grateful for the gourmet quality meal he was already providing.
Normally he’d never listen to the demands of gluttonous cleaning props, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and if relinquishing a little bit more of his magic would make the broom more inclined to listen to his instructions…
Little by little, he inched the doors regulating the flow of his magic slightly apart, trying his best not to fight against the pull of the magical foci, no matter how uncomfortable, how unnatural that felt. And the more Azul worked on amplifying the connection, the more it opened up to him in return— until the push and pull stabilized into a steady, continuous flow.
And at that point, something changed. He became increasingly aware of all the ridges and veins making up the grain of the wooden handle; of the traces of dried mud that were weighing down its unflagged bristles, sticking some of them together; of the pests that had made of the brush their home, their crawling and scuttling perceived as an unrelenting tickle at the back of his consciousness.
It most definitely wasn’t real, but he swore that with every new intake of breath the wood seemed to almost expand, its fibers rattling and vibrating in tune with every beat of his heart.
It couldn’t possibly be real, because brooms weren’t sentient beings; but for the first time since he mounted his very first broom, he felt as if it was truly, completely, inexplicably alive, and that realization was so startling that Azul, he—
He froze.
“Ah!”
And promptly crashed to the ground.
He was still hanging onto the broom, but gone was the rustle of the bristles in the wind, the all-encompassing hyper-awareness that had taken over his consciousness. Half of his face was pressed up against the dirt.
A long stretch of silence followed.
“ARGH! So close!”
In a flurry of convoluted motions, he disentangled himself from the magical vehicle and rolled onto his back, breathing heavily.
Fine. He had been taken by surprise.
It wouldn’t happen again.
Azul got back on his feet, wiped the dirt off the lens of his glasses, and picked up his broom.
In less than a minute he was back right where he left off; only this time, he was prepared. He didn’t so much welcome the extraneous sensation as he accepted it for the irksome, invasive side effect that it was. A necessary evil, a kinship subsisting on mutual exploitation. It was just like all his other relationships— minus the not so veiled lies and the pitiful backstabbing attempts. In a way, that made the broom more trustworthy than most of his so-called allies.
For some reason, the thought made him chuckle. The wood creaked back, a hollow echo that snapped his attention back to the matter at hand. Azul had opened the dam; now he had to force more water through. The other night he had been too exhausted to properly regulate his output and had ended up rocketing upwards in a series of short bursts before ultimately losing his hold on the connection. This time he’d make sure to start off slow and pour his energy in calm, constant waves.
A soft breeze collected underneath his feet, a concentrated whirlwind that upon hitting the ground forced the surrounding grass blades to bend and quiver. Then— a sinking feeling seizing his chest, his stomach dropping lower and lower and throwing his insides into disarray. He felt the wind push against the soles of his shoes, and before he could start having second thoughts, the broomstick began to rise.
Azul hunched over, old instincts kicking in and taking ahold of his body. His legs darted up, feet hooking together in an attempt to secure his unbalanced body to the blasted thing.
Thankfully, it turned out to be an effortless, graceful ascent, that somehow reminded him of all those instances when, as a kid, he’d find himself riding stray underwater currents for minutes to an end. Young mers were discouraged from entering those — the unpredictability of their flow and direction making their pull difficult to break free from — and Azul’s parents had been especially vocal about the toll that jettisoning too many times per day would take on his heart and body; yet, not even the resulting ache could deter him from indulging in his secret past-time, from reveling in the feeling of weightlessness that enveloped his limbs whenever he whizzed past the world, untouchable.
But that had been the sea. He couldn’t tumble his way out of the sky and expect to get away with just a sore body and painful twinges racking his chest.
A howl, angry and sudden and definitely inhuman, had Azul's attention snap back to the trees in front of him, heart hammering in his throat.
After a moment, he pursed his lips, biting the inside of his cheek at his overreaction. There were no beasts inhabiting Sage’s Island, and even if there were, he was hovering at more than five meters from the ground, for Triton’s sake. No, it must have been the wind, or one of the stray animals that sometimes found their way into campus grounds from the nearby mountains. Nothing to warrant the weakness that had taken ahold of his legs or the dread steadily pooling in his gut.
Except that the wretched sound echoed through the forest a second time, and then a third, and maybe it wasn't ‘nothing’ after all, and suddenly Azul's eyes were flitting from branch to branch, looking for anything amiss, for anything lurking in the shadows.
Predictably he found nothing, and as the broom kept on rising, the pit in his stomach only grew with it.
Eight meters, now. He had never reached that height before.
The evergreen canopy began to stir as a light breeze weaved through the tree branches and then up to him, pushing against his body and causing his broom to momentarily sway. Azul leaned down until his torso was flush against the wood and tightened his grip, using to keep it steady.
The wind settled down just as fast as it had come but, in a twist of the events that was as ironic as it was reckless, Azul found himself idly wishing for it to be back, for his body had grown impossibly hot against the lower temperatures, as if his skin was boiling him from the inside out. Azul swallowed, wincing immediately after: his tongue felt bloated and coarse, and whenever it moved, it scraped against the ceiling of his mouth with the same usefulness of a dried out sea sponge.
He only realized he had stopped moving when he became aware that he had been staring at the same treetops without them moving an inch.
And that wouldn’t do. He needed to go further up if he wanted to pass this class.
“Come on…” he mumbled, feeling beads of perspiration collect on his brow.
The broom stayed still, affixed in place in a way that couldn’t be too dissimilar from that of the stars dotting the night.
Remember to keep your back straight, or you won’t be able to gain elevation.
A solid piece of advice, one that had been bestowed upon him by one of the best flight students in his class, nay, the whole year. An advice he earnestly wanted to heed, were it not for a small issue…
His hands were all clammy again. He wasn’t going to ease his grip, not when he could feel his fingers on the verge of sliding off. Wiping them on his jacket was out of the question, because what if he moved the wrong way? What if a new gust slammed against him while he was in such a precarious position? What then?
There were too many factors to consider and too many unforeseeable risks he didn’t want to take— which meant that he was effectively stuck in the sky, perched on an old, flea-ridden piece of wood, at Sevens knew how many feet from the ground.
Alone.
A single thought bubbled uninvited to the surface, one that sounded eerily similar to what Jade had said under his breath during one of their rare shared classes.
Asking a fish to fly? What a ludicrous idea.
And that, that was the moment when he came to the startling realization that he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t do it. Practicing at night had been a serious blunder on his part and, just—
What on earth had he been thinking?
He was supposed to be fast asleep, under the safety and comfort of his many blankets, not… this. This was a mistake. This was a huge, colossal mistake and any moment now he was going to fall off and break his neck.
He tried opening his mouth to call for help, but whatever he had in mind was soon forgotten as an ugly little noise spilled from his lips. A treacherous, broken sound that long ago he had sworn to never produce again, not in this lifetime, not ever.
Through the light veil of haze that had clouded his vision, Azul saw red.
Fine.
He clenched his jaw so hard that his teeth ground together.
He had been alone all his life, and had learnt how to fend for himself just fine.
This wouldn’t be any different.
Instead of losing time pushing down the myriad of concurrent sensations that were afflicting his body, he sidestepped them in favor of taking stock of the situation and looking for a way to get out of that mess.
Wind magic, yelled the prideful magician that was in him, urging him to take action. Azul’s eyes darted to his wand, which was still attached to the side of his belt. Still, he hesitated: would he be able to draw it and unleash the spell in time? For all the times he had fallen off the broom, he still hadn’t gotten a clear idea on the speed at which objects pummeled down, but it was undoubtedly faster than the time it took them to sink and Azul had always been the best at that.
Which left him with only one viable option.
Tentatively, he brought his gaze back to his hands, still stubbornly clutching the broomstick. His already pallid knuckles had turned white due to the prolonged strain and his fingers had lost all their sensitivity— or so it seemed. It was difficult, but if he concentrated enough, he could pinpoint a faint throbbing underneath his palms, signaling that a transfer of energy was still taking place. Which meant that it had to still be there. The thread linking the broom to his magic, tethering them both in midair.
He just had to reach it.
Focus.
His chest hurt, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the sky.
Focus.
His chest hurt, and he wanted to close his eyes and make it all go away, but he couldn’t, because he wasn’t sure he’d then be able to tell up from down anymore with the way his head was spinning.
Focus—
After what felt like an eternity, his nose was hit by a whiff of wood polish. He was quick to latch onto it and squeeze his eyes shut, afraid of losing track of it among all the inputs clouding his senses.
He breathed in a second time, letting the aroma guide him back to its source, dragging him past the numbness that had overtaken his limbs, all the way to the heart of the magical foci. Heart that was beating because of his magic, at a gentle rhythm that had nothing to do with the one resounding inside his chest.
He grabbed hold of the cord connecting the two of them together and started squeezing it shut.
The broom stirred, as if rousing from a long slumber. It wobbled from side to side a couple of times, with enough force to almost send Azul hanging upside down, until finally, mercifully, it resumed its descent, albeit in a series of jerking motions that turned the twinges in his abdomen from mildly unpleasant to excruciatingly painful.
But he couldn’t care less.
Down. Let me down.
Please let me down, please, please, let me—
His knees hit the ground, followed by the rest of his body. Azul let go of his broom and dug his fingers into the dirt, halting his fall before his face, too, could smash against the field.
For a few moments he kept completely still, at the mercy of the piercing ringing that was reverberating in his skull. When he was sure he wouldn’t start dry heaving on the spot, he coaxed his eyes open, coming face to face with a particularly gray patch of grass.
He. He had done it.
He had flown back down, relatively unscathed!
He…
Ice pellets, forcefully hailing their way down his chest, scraping along the walls of his larynx, making his breath hitch. They gathered at the bottom of his lungs, the frost spreading from there turning whatever ounce of relief he once had coursing through his veins into heavy, congealed chunks of pure loathing.
“So stupid…!”
Azul balled his right hand into a fist, unconcerned about the soil collecting under his nails, about the gravel chipping at his meticulously trimmed half-moons.
The only thing that mattered was that he had failed. Again. And the most infuriating part was that he had been so close, so very close to executing a flawless ascent, just to ruin everything at the first sign of trouble.
He had gathered all of his sacrifices and efforts, had held them up close to his chest, and then had promptly let them leak through the cracks of his fingers.
“Fuck…”
One more time. He’d have to try again. After a small break, he’d get up and—
A soft crunching noise, barely audible over the tinnitus still plaguing his ears. Azul scrambled into a crouch, fingers reaching for his wand.
During his time as Octavinelle’s dorm leader he had amassed quite a collection of both contracts and enemies, and while it had only taken a matter of seconds to lose the first of the two set of items, he wasn’t as naïve as to believe that the second would dwindle just as easily.
It genuinely baffled him, the lengths to which some people would go for the sake of some petty revenge. Regrettably, those grudges had more often than not led to rather unfortunate encounters... for those idiotic enough to put his patience to the test, that is.
The figure took notice of his stance and halted his approach.
Not an idiot, then.
After a beat, they brought a hand to the back of their head and started massaging it, as if trying to soothe a mild headache.
“Really?” The sigh that escaped the newcomer’s lips was faint, but laced with an underlying asperity that perfectly conveyed the magnitude of his annoyance. “Had I wanted to harm you, I’d have stricken you down while you were still in the sky.”
Azul blinked, as a budding sense of deja-vu took root in his mind. Inch by inch, he mustered up a courteous, albeit guarded smile.
“…Jamil-san.”
He started lowering his hand, then thought better of it: as much as he had enjoyed his stay in Scarabia, he had an inkling that the other magician was still nursing some grievances over what had transpired during the holidays.
His, too, was one of the names that appeared in Azul’s list of potential enemies, albeit for a slightly different reason than the rest. As a matter of fact, Jamil’s name also happened to be recorded in Azul’s (recently created) list of potential allies, penned down in his (steadily growing) list of potential employees, and printed on the front of one of the (strictly confidential) dossiers sitting at the very back of his safe, alongside the original copy of one very specific recording.
What could he say? Jamil was a truly exceptional individual. It made Azul all the more wary of the reasons behind his unexpected late-night visit.
Well, wary and curious.
“It’s rare for you to be approaching me on your own volition,” he started, because the countless hours he had poured into honing his strategies for the Board Game Club’s meetings had made him well aware of the advantages that came with being the player moving the first pawn. “Finally made up your mind about joining my dorm?”
The reply was as expeditious as it was stern.
“Keep on dreaming.”
Well, it had been worth a shot. Azul would have shrugged, had he not been fairly certain that said action would have elicited an hex in reply.
“I was on my way to the Mirror Chamber and happened to see someone struggling with his broom.” Jamil gave a slight shake of his head. “Too bad it turned out to be you.”
Jamil’s right hand hadn’t stopped rubbing soothing circles around his neck, while the other was hoisting what seemed to be a drawstring pouch over his shoulder. No magical pen in sight; but then again, he was too far away for Azul to be sure.
Through lowered eyelids, Azul tried to make out other details, before ultimately giving up. They were standing in the middle of the field: it was only natural that the dim light coming from the lamp posts lining the adjacent street wouldn’t reach that far— ah.
Azul felt the muscles of his face freeze. Then, the corner of his lips twitched.
To think you’d be so bad at lying…
Azul would have to fix that, after they started doing business together.
“My, such a magnanimous heart…” He pointedly ignored Jamil’s closing remark and focused instead on upping the cheerfulness in his voice. “And, pray tell, what were you up to wandering around campus in the middle of the night?”
At last, Jamil’s hand halted its ministrations.
“You don’t have to make it sound so shady, you know,” huffed Jamil, leaving Azul to imagine the unamused scowl that usually came with it. “I was simply in the mood for a walk.”
His tone was even, tuned into that specific frequency of neutrality that only existed between boredom and annoyance.
It was almost tragic, not to mention, insulting, the way he was sticking to his guns— as if such a carefully constructed story could possibly fool him. Scarabia prided itself on the forethought and cunning of his students, but they were about as flexible as hard corals; Octavinelle’s residents, on the other hand, were nimble, ever-adapting, and ruthless in their pursuits. Just like the sea, they didn’t bode well with order and structure.
Azul wasn’t like the lot of them. For however much he enjoyed weaving a bit of flair into his daily endeavors, he much preferred to cut to the chase when faced with an unforeseen problem: time equaled money, after all, and Azul couldn’t afford to waste either.
That being said, he too could appreciate a good hunt every now and then.
“Shady? You?” he chuckled, “Why, to imply such wasn’t my intention in the slightest! If anything, I was just surprised: I didn’t peg you down as the type to spend his precious leisure time indulging in pointless— that is, idle activities…”
“You must be a terrible judge of character, then.” Jamil stuffed his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie, painting himself as the picture of nonchalance. A faithful portrait that would have no doubt deceived the general public.
Too bad that Azul knew a thing or two about fine art and its appraisal; enough to determine, beyond doubt, that he was right.
“Am I, now?”
Of course he was right.
He had the proof right in front of him.
“You came to me, Jamil-san.”
After all, there were only two reasons why people sought out the housewarden of Octavinelle.
“And what’s more, I don’t seem to see Kalim-san anywhere.” He felt the beginning of a smirk creep over his face and effortlessly smoothed it into a smile that was as fake as the masterpiece standing in front of him. “How peculiar.”
Only two.
And yet, when it came to the vice-prefect of Scarabia he couldn’t tell which one it was going to be.
Azul had caught a glimpse of the patchwork of rips and tears marring the surface of the canvas, and had been in the midst of brushing his fingers along that labyrinth of stitches when they began to loosen and bleed into the brushwork.
Too many seams, too little time. The stench of rotting ink had become overbearing and had forced Azul to begrudgingly put his inspection on hold.
But even now, it seemed as if more threads were being weaved into the fabric with each passing day, while Azul was still nowhere close to finding the one that, when pulled, would unravel the bundle of contradictions that was Jamil Viper.
And that was what made him fun.
When the vice prefect spoke again, his tone was so low it sent a chill running down his spine.
“…what are you implying, Azul?”
Gone was the tactful neutrality, the pretense. Jamil’s posture had gone rigid like a cobra coiling onto itself, and Azul wondered if the magic pen had been hidden inside his pocket all along, if Jamil had been gripping it for the past minutes, waiting for the right opportunity to strike.
“It’s rare to see the two of you apart, that’s all,” he chirped, his thumb brushing over the smooth facets of his own magical gemstone.
There were a few moments of tension during which no one dared to move. Then, just as Azul was contemplating the pros and cons of changing his stance to get the blood flowing back in his legs, Jamil pulled his hands out of his pocket, making him freeze in place.
“He’s asleep.” The vice prefect crossed his arms over his chest. “As you should be, seeing as it’s already close to midnight.”
He was still wand-less. Azul tried not to let his disappointment show.
“Funny, the same admonition could be applied to you as well.”
“Our circumstances differ,” retorted Jamil, as the bag dangling from his wrist slowly came to a stop. “I’m not the one who’ll have to attend a housewarden meeting first thing in the morning.”
“You won’t have to attend, that’s true…” Azul’s mind flew back to a couple of months back, when he had opened his eyes to scarlet silks and the pale morning sun filtering through the brass window grills of their sumptuous prison, the throbbing in his head a natural, albeit irksome, byproduct of a productive night of scheming. “…and yet I somehow doubt that you’ll wake up any later than me.”
Jamil didn’t reply; he didn’t have to. Even shrouded by the cover of the night, Azul would have been able to feel the sharpness of those gray daggers pointed at his head from miles away.
He was about to press on, when a small beep from his phone caused the words to die and melt on the tip of his tongue, filling his mouth with a sour aftertaste.
Had it really been one hour since he had set foot on the field?
Too bad. The chase would have to continue on a later date.
Azul half-heartedly let go of his magical pen, and instead made a huge show of checking the time on his screen. “Well, look at the time! I’d be delighted to chat more, but I’m afraid that I’m in the middle of something, so…”
This would have been the perfect moment to draw their little discussion to a close. Jamil had been offered the perfect excuse to leave, Azul had had his small break, everybody would walk — or fly, in his case — away with their pride still intact, and the next day they could act as if this brief parenthesis had never occurred.
It was a golden opportunity— Jamil must have realized it as well.
“Yes,” agreed Jamil, at last, and Azul found himself encouragingly nodding along. “I can see that. If by ‘something’ you mean ‘free falling to your death’, that is.”
Azul’s head halted mid nod.
“That was intentional,” he declared, but his delivery was weakened by the extreme wariness coursing through his body. “All in preparation for tomorrow’s test.”
“I don’t recall Coach mentioning that it’d be a test of endurance,” said Jamil, now walking with purpose towards him. “And you were up there for an embarrassing amount of time.”
“Just admiring the scenery.”
“In pitch darkness?”
“Why…” Azul’s lips quirked into something that was far too thin to be a smile. “You should know first-hand how far the eye can see in nights such as this.”
Jamil came to a stop a few meters from him; close enough for his features to become discernible under the moonlight.
Azul observed with a sick sort of fascination as realization befell onto that sculpted face, before it quickly crystallized into another sharp layer of defiance.
There was a poignant pause, which lasted precisely eighteen seconds. He knew that because he had counted all the times the sole of Jamil’s shoe had impacted the ground, the first light taps steadily devolving into muffled thumps. Azul would have found that show of restlessness quite endearing, had he not been preoccupied with enduring the pins and needles currently prickling his legs.
At the nineteenth stomp, all that was left of his classmate’s patience cracked and fell apart, and Azul braced himself for the inevitable onslaught by imbuing his pen with magic.
“Enough!” snapped Jamil. “I don’t have time for this game of charades— get on your broom!”
The magic sputtered and died out.
Azul blinked.
…eh?
Then he blinked some more, his eyebrows shooting all the way up.
“Eh?!”
Jamil pressed on, relentless.
“Your broom, Azul. The thing you need to tame before you can even dare thinking about passing tomorrow’s test?” He waved a hand. “Get on it.”
Azul could only stare, trying to make sense of— any of it, really, because this was loud, and sudden, and a complete reversal of what he was used to when it came to dealing with his classmate. Azul had gotten to know brazen, quiet Jamil, who shunned all kinds of attention but was not afraid of speaking his own mind; was getting acquainted with proud and shrewd Jamil, who relentlessly worked for his own benefit and didn’t shy away from challenges…
But this. This was new. There were many facets of Jamil Viper, but every single one of them seemed to have in common a deep and irrational aversion to Azul and his proposals.
This was going against that pre-established order, and he wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with that.
“Wait, wait, hold on.” Azul grabbed his broom and staggered to his feet. “What’s the meaning of—”
A dizzy spell hit the side of his head like a brick, making the ground under his feet spin and tilt. With a swiftness that was more out of desperation than deftness, he planted the broom in the mud and leaned on it in lieu of his walking stick.
Somewhere near him, Jamil remarked something about his face being more hideous than usual. Azul would have chuckled, had he not been struggling to keep from flopping over.
Physical education, the bane of his existence.
It took a few moments, but eventually the earth righted itself up. Azul decided to cling to the broom a little bit longer. Just in case.
“As I was saying…” he cleared his throat, “What game are you playing?”
“There’s no game here,” replied Jamil. “I need you to get the hang of flying as soon as possible.”
Azul stood his ground, meeting his assurances with an unimpressed look that had the vice prefect groaning.
“Tomorrow we’re having another shared lab with class A,” Jamil tried again. “You’ve been Kalim’s Potionology partner for the past two sessions, and from my understanding of Kalim’s notes, this time you’re going to be handling some delicate ingredients.”
Jamil paused, checking whether Azul was following or not. Azul wasn’t entirely sure what Crewel’s class had to do with the matter at hand, but nonetheless gave him a brief nod.
Kalim and he had been considering changing the components of their Summer in a Bottle experiment for the better part of the week. It was a choice driven by the need to overcome a problem of accessibility, rather than of functionality: while conch shells had proved to be the perfect sound component due to their resonance, they could only be found in coastal regions— as Kalim had dejectedly pointed out. Cicadas and their nymphs constituted a weaker alternative, and thus had to be collected in larger quantities, but they could be found virtually in every country with the exception of the ones facing frigid temperatures all year round.
They also, like all living things, had a tendency to explode when coming into contact with certain chemical reagents without having been thoroughly treated first. It was a nasty, if not tedious, process, but Azul didn’t mind the extra work if it meant it’d make their creation more accessible to all the poor, hapless populations who had no direct access to the sea and its many gifts.
After all, it was what the magnanimous Sea Witch would have wanted. The fact that said adjustment also happened to lower the production costs of their purely hypothetical minimum viable product was but a secondary, fortunate coincidence.
Jamil hummed, before continuing.
“Normally, leaving you with my dorm leader wouldn’t be an issue… but you, in your current state?” He shook his head, his ponytail swaying with the motion. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you made the whole lab blow up. I can’t risk it.”
Azul used the broom to heave himself up in a proper standing position, his knuckles turning white around the handle.
“Me? Messing something up in the middle of brewing?” he scoffed. “Fat chance.”
Azul didn’t screw up his potions, period.
“Oh for the love of…” Jamil dragged a hand over his face with enough force to hurt. “Look at yourself! You can barely even stand—”
“In case you didn’t notice, I’ll let you know that I’ve spent a lot of energy flying around just now!”
“Oh, but I did notice. You, falling asleep during Trein’s lessons, contented with staying in the background and not speaking up in class unless directly called on by a teacher…” he trailed off, furrowing his brows at something Azul couldn’t see. His eyes, that had steadily lowered to the ground as he talked, darted back to him. “Heck, even Kalim has noticed that something is off— Kalim. He has been actually putting some effort in our study sessions, which wouldn’t be so bad if only he hadn’t been pestering me about helping him dig out these damn critters! It’s been a hassle!”
He had been gesticulating throughout the whole spiel, but punctuated the last bit by lifting the pouch by its neck and shaking it… with way too much restraint for what the gesture was supposed to convey?
Azul considered the pouch. The fabric was too thick to infer its contents, but after hearing what Jamil had said, he could make an educated guess. Judging by how it swayed in the breeze, it must have been pretty light, meaning he must have collected just a couple of specimens. And was that the knotted top of multiple plastic bags peeking out from its opening?
Huh.
He stared at Jamil for a moment, taking in the slim sweatshirt, the band dyed in the colors of Scarabia hugging one of his wrists, the mud stains sullying both his shoes and the knee area of his trousers; then he let his gaze slide further away, until it encountered a lonely, unassuming broomstick propped up against one of the trees.
He thought about how all of these factors related to each other, visualized all the possible combinations until, finally, something clicked into place.
“I see…” he conceded, the relief that flowed into his veins pulling a smile out of him that was so spontaneous, Azul could’ve almost mistaken it as genuine. “If you wished to consult me for a favor you could’ve just asked me during class, you know. Regardless of how packed my schedule might be, there’ll always be space for you and Kalim-san should you require my services.”
Jamil’s eyes widened in horror.
“What? No! Have you been listening to a single word I— ugh, whatever.” He craned his head back to look at the sky and brought a hand to his forehead. “Sure. Now summon one of your contracts and let’s get to work.”
Oh, how Azul had longed to hear those words.
“As you wish,” he said in his practiced business tone, before drawing his wand.
He began performing the summoning enchantment by flicking his wrist twice, in the typical round, half-moon motion that was commonly used by magicians to beckon forth waves when in the proximity of a source of water; but instead of concluding with a third flick, he drew a full circle while twirling the magic pen between his fingers.
When his hand came to a stop — the pen trapped between his thumb and index finger, his palm facing up — a glowing parchment poofed into existence right above it, in a burst of golden dust. Azul caught it midair without sparing it a single glance.
Near him, Jamil merely rolled his eyes and muttered, “Show-off.”
Azul chose to ignore said comment. Jamil didn’t need to know how many hours of practice it had taken him to be able to grab the damn thing without it unraveling or falling to the floor.
Gravity above water was indeed a most formidable opponent.
“Well then,” he continued, uncapping his pen, “what are your terms?”
If Jamil had truly wanted him to be well rested for his master’s sake, he could have ratted him out to one of the teachers. There wasn’t a curfew per se, but unsupervised access to some of the facilities on campus grounds was restricted to those students that had earned enough credits for them to be deemed trustworthy around the equipment, and Jamil had been forced to tutor him enough times to know by now that Azul was not to be trusted around brooms.
Then again, Azul was still in possession of one very interesting recording, so it made sense for the vice housewarden to watch his actions around him.
And yet, Jamil wasn’t asking for him to delete it; in fact, he didn’t even mention it.
What he was asking for was…
“…to help Kalim get top marks in Potionology?” Azul tapped the back of his pen against his temple. “You do realize that as long as I’m his partner that’s going to happen anyway, right.”
“Taking over his share of the work won’t cut it,” clarified Jamil. “You’ll have to make sure he knows what he’s doing both during the prepping phase and the actual brewing. He’ll need to familiarize himself with the overall process, to minimize the risks of him getting hurt when he’ll inevitably try to recreate it at home.”
Mh. So Kalim had been serious about that. Azul might have to start drafting that utility patent application sooner than he had thought.
He cleared his throat. “I can certainly make time for some one-on-one tutoring sessions, yes….”
“In addition to that, you’ll also be responsible for procuring Kalim’s half of the ingredients.”
“That’s…” An odd request, considering it was Kalim they were talking about, and between his family’s influence and fortune, Azul couldn’t imagine him having any sort of trouble fetching the materials. He didn’t voice any of that; instead, Azul tucked a lock of hair behind one ear, running some numbers. “…going to cost you an additional hour of coaching, I’m afraid.”
Jamil had been so adamant about their lesson not taking more than an hour, that Azul was certain he’d try to haggle his new fee down, or—
“Deal.”
— or go along with it, apparently?
No, it didn’t make any sense. Jamil wouldn’t normally settle for disadvantageous conditions without at least putting up some fight. There must have been something he was missing, but…
Jamil’s expression was firm. Closed off.
Fine. He didn’t want to go into details. For how much his classmate’s behaviour intrigued him, Azul was first and foremost a businessman and he’d be a fool to refuse such a bargain when it was offered to him on a silver platter.
He wouldn’t pry… for now.
“Then, it’s a deal.”
Azul tapped the four corners of the contract with the magestone embedded in his pen, anchoring it to the air with a floating charm. Spinning the pen between his fingers, he went through all the conditions they had agreed upon and arranged them into a nifty mental list. Then, once he had tilted the parchment at a comfortable angle, he let go of it and started drafting the contract in earnest.
He didn’t notice Jamil move until the vice prefect appeared at his side, his cool gaze following every stroke of Azul’s pen. Judging by the way his eyebrows kept knitting together, he was probably having a hard time reading along.
Azul was nearing the end of the usual, customary preamble when Jamil got closer and pointed at one of the recital paragraphs he had just finished writing, scrunching his nose in distaste.
“This word. What did you write.”
Azul threw a distracted look at the spot above Jamil’s finger.
“Hereinafter.”
Jamil studied said word with a dark look on his face.
“Why does your handwriting need to be so painstakingly elaborate…”
“Mmh,” Azul felt the corner of his lips curling upwards. “I wonder.”
Not a real explanation, but it wasn’t as if Jamil was actually asking for one. Thus, he kept on writing, and if he started reciting the words as he jotted them down, well…
Everyone knew that reading out loud was one of the best ways to perform a grammar check.
After that, things proceeded smoothly. Azul skimmed through the text one more time and once he had verified that everything was in order, added his own name.
He turned around to pass the pen to Jamil, but the other had already uncapped his own.
Jamil’s signature was much simpler than his, which had been purposefully designed to elicit awe and respect at first impact; instead, it was functional and unassuming, the type of signature people tended to gloss over and forget.
And yet, as he watched his classmate at work, Azul couldn’t help but let his gaze linger on the short, bold dashes dotting the top of those sleek ‘i’s and think that, somehow, those were very fitting— very Jamil-like.
Whatever that meant.
A few moments later the ink glowed gold and settled down, signaling that the contract had been finalized. Azul barely had the time to tuck the parchment into one of his breast pockets when his musings were interrupted by two loud claps.
“Now that we’re done with that crap, hop on. I need to see your form.”
Azul’s eyes flitted from Jamil, who had now unceremoniously dropped his pouch to the ground, to his own broom, crusted with mud.
“…very well,” he sighed.
Azul rolled his shoulders and got back to work.
One could tell that Jamil was used to teaching by the way he delivered his explanations— meticulously, yet to the point: a watered down approach that condensed countless notions into digestible chunks. He was quick to spot mistakes and point them out, and ruthless when it came to fixing Azul’s ever hunching posture.
He was a fine, seasoned teacher.
It didn’t mean that he was an effective one; not for him, at least.
“For the love of…” Jamil slammed his mouth shut, swallowing down the name of whatever great legendary magician he was about to invoke. When he resumed, he made a point to keep his voice steady and low, but the quakes of his clenched fists betrayed his mounting irritation.
“Forget about theory. You already know all there’s to know about the theory. In fact, I’m pretty sure you know more about it than about anyone else in our damn year,” he took a big breath, forcing himself to pause. “If you want to get better, what you need is—”
“Practice, practice, and more practice,” Azul cut in with a roll of his eyes. “You’ve been repeating that for the past hour, but I don’t see how that would benefit me at the moment, considering that we only have about—” He whipped out his phone and tapped on the screen. “—fifty minutes left before I retire to my chambers, as per our agreement.”
“It would be more than enough time if you just listened to what I say!” Jamil leaned back on his own broomstick, one of his hands rising to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m not expecting you to turn into a flight virtuoso overnight. You don’t need to be, when the test is about balance and precision— which is something you already have.”
Azul took note of the way Jamil was effortlessly riding his broom hands-free and shot him an unamused look. “Do I, now?”
Jamil averted his gaze to look at the sky. Azul kept his own fixed on the other boy, bracing himself for the other shoe to drop.
“You were hovering ten meters above ground, give or take,” he relayed, after a contemplative hum. “That wasn’t half-bad, considering how you normally fare in this class.”
“I’ve been practicing,” said Azul, a bit too hastily, a bit too harshly, as something ugly and vicious and weak that he refused to give a name to bubbled dangerously close to the surface, threatening to breach it. Something which didn’t quite have a reason to be there, considering that Jamil had been nothing but civil to him.
“Yes, I gathered as much,” Jamil replied after a beat, with an ease that Azul just couldn’t accept. “It doesn’t change the fact that results are what really matters here, and so far you have scarcely produced any.”
As if the red marks tainting the corner of his student reports weren’t enough of a reminder. As if Azul’s dreams weren’t plagued by the sound of whistles and jeers.
“Well then!” he rebutted in an exuberant tone, spreading his arms wide in mock invitation, “Since you’re the expert here, tell me! Should I have wasted countless hours on getting the broom attuned to me? Ruined my diet by consuming more protein? Trained tirelessly every night, with scrapes and bruises as my only rewards?” He crossed his arms, crushing the broom against his body, and started drumming his fingers on the wooden handle. “Because I’ve tried those. In fact I’ve tried everything, and nothing ever worked.”
“What the…” For a few moments, Jamil’s lips moved aimlessly, struggling to shape words, and something within Azul rejoiced in seeing his usually composed classmate at a loss. “How am I supposed to know what’s wrong, if you won’t show me? And why would protein help with flying?!”
“Beats me! Why would flight magic even count as something to be taught in a PE class?”
“That’s— nevermind that!” Jamil lowered himself until they were face to face. “Did it ever occur to you that you might’ve been doing those things the wrong way?”
Possibly. Maybe.
After all, he—
“Nonsense,” he sniffed, and that was final. Because for how stubborn he could be at times, Azul was nothing but extremely thorough in all his endeavors. What he lacked in athleticism, he made up for in sheer perseverance and lateral thinking. “I made sure to follow all the instructions to a T.”
Azul wasn’t a lost cause. He wasn’t. He was just…
(—silly, useless octopus—)
…busy. With the Lounge, his studies, his responsibilities as a warden. Not to mention, that was only his second year experiencing life above sea: his body and senses were still getting used to the change in environment.
It made sense for him to be a late bloomer.
“The nerve…” he heard Jamil mutter, while the rest of his sentence was lost in an incomprehensible grumble. After a moment of consideration, he let out a brief huff. “Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter now. What really matters here is that you follow my lead, if you actually want to improve.”
They had signed a contract. Azul had agreed to its terms. Jamil was merely trying to fulfill his part of the deal.
It was as simple as that.
“I…”
But Jamil was also the most skilled flight student in their class, always the first to take off, always towering above the others; and from up there, Azul must’ve been indistinguishable from the ants scampering about the field.
“I’m perfectly capable of learning on my own,” he spat, words simmering on his tongue, burning his lips.
“And how many more years will that take you?” Jamil leaped off his broom and hissed, noticing how close he had come to crushing the contents of his bag. A grimace twisted his features as he started reaching for it, but one quick look in Azul’s direction was all it took for him to steel his resolve and pick it up.
“You know what? Suit yourself. Call off the deal. But you’ll need to step up your game, Azul, or at this rate you’ll never pass this class.”
Cool, detached, completely unsympathetic. The dismissal hit Azul like a splash of freezing water drenching him from head to toe, and for a moment he felt like he was back in his octopus pot, surrounded by mounds of broken seashells and the unappetizing remains of yet another meager meal, staring at all the goals he had carved on the inner walls of his haven and gnawing on his thumb to the point of breaking the skin because it wasn’t enough; he wasn’t progressing fast enough and there was just so, so much to do—
It was a sobering memory. Since then he had achieved most of the objectives he had set for himself, but those victories had been eclipsed by all the waves of novel aspirations that surged together with his budding confidence.
Never satisfied. Always pushing himself to meet his self-imposed deadlines, always striving to not fall behind in the race against the ticking clock.
It had been hard, and incredibly stressful, but he had managed everything on his own— because that was the whole point, wasn’t it?
He didn’t need other people to succeed.
“Wait!”
But he wasn’t so blind as to not recognize that cooperation could help speed things along, and he wouldn’t let anything get between him and his success.
Not even his own pride.
“The agreement is still in effect! I…” He cleared his throat, buying time to collect his thoughts. Jamil, who had been in the process of turning away from him, stopped in his tracks.
Azul swallowed, and tried again.
“As I said before, I’ve done everything I could. So you’ll have to excuse me for having some initial reservations about your, ah… conventional approach.” Azul pressed a hand over his chest, over his breast pocket, and leaned forward in a small bow. “But I assure you, I’m still willing to listen to whatever you have in mind.”
And if that too failed…
Well. He’d just have to wake up a little earlier to compensate.
Before he could worry about that, though, he had to get Jamil to resume the lesson. Of course, with the other’s signature in his possession he could easily coerce the vice prefect into compliance; but that was bound to have some unpleasant repercussions on their future interactions, and their relationship was already strained as it was.
Thankfully, it seemed like it wouldn’t come to that.
“So stubborn…”
It was barely a whisper, but Azul still managed to make it out. Keeping his head low, he released a silent exhale and relaxed, knowing he had won.
“Alright,” said Jamil, raising his voice, “but there better be no more complaints this time. Now hop back on your broom and—”
Azul watched as those red trainers turned in his direction, before freezing on the spot.
A couple of seconds flew by, where nothing really happened. Azul was debating whether to look up or not, when a pleased hum filled the silence between them, caressing his ears, making his knees go weak.
“…Actually, before that, why don’t you bow a little deeper. Maybe get down on your knees. Grovel a little.”
Ah, he mused, so that wasn’t just the overblot speaking.
Azul straightened himself up, a sharp smile tugging at his lips. “I’m afraid the price for that specific deal is higher than what you can currently afford.”
He received a scoff in response, but Jamil’s own smirk stayed in place. “Not worth it.”
Never someone to let an opportunity to tease pass him by, Azul opened his mouth to press on, just to be interrupted by a gust of wind flowing in from the trees. Judging by how quickly Jamil rushed to hug himself it must have been pretty cold, but it felt pleasantly refreshing against his skin. He attributed it to his merfolk origins, making him more resistant to low temperatures.
“C’mon, let’s get this over with before I turn into an icicle,” said Jamil, after the wind settled down. “Mount on your broom and fly upwards, like you did before.”
Azul craned his head back to throw a quick look at the sky, at the top of the trees that still hadn’t stopped shaking, and felt his stomach drop.
Like he did before. Right.
He must’ve spent too much time absorbed in his thoughts, because before he knew it, Jamil was talking again.
“Can you do it? Or was that just a fluke?”
Azul blinked. Casted one last glance to the sky. Then he lifted a leg over the broomstick, ignoring how stiff it was, and huffed: “Watch me closely.”
One kick, and Azul began to rise.
“I don’t get it.”
Azul tried looking up from the small plastic bag he had been handed, just to be hit by another wave of nausea that sent his throat into a spasming fit. He squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head again, breathing heavily.
“Maybe, a variation of sea-sickness?”
He gagged, his body expelling nothing except whatever was left of his pride. Everything in his abdomen ached, and his mouth couldn’t stop producing excessive amounts of saliva.
It was revolting. It was pathetic.
Most importantly, it hurt.
He had been so close. So very close. One moment he had been sailing smoothly toward the stars; the next he was drowning, as if a big wave had tipped his boat, shackled his limbs and neck, and tried to pull him under.
Azul dipped his head down and retched again.
His throat wouldn’t stop burning.
“Hey. Are you sure everything is fine?”
Azul wiped his lips with the back of his hand and opened his eyes by a crack. He was met by a dark, opaque smudge smeared all across his knuckles, which he proceeded to rub on his trousers with a click of his tongue.
Ugh, ink.
He turned his head, coming face to face with a Jamil Viper in all its frowning glory, and croaked out: “Just peachy.”
Jamil’s frown deepened.
“Your eyes are doing that thing again…”
“What thing?” he asked, but Jamil was already shaking his head.
“Nothing. Forget it.” He picked up Azul’s broom and started idly running his hand through its bristles. “I was thinking that we should probably call it a day and try again tomorrow, during lunch break.”
“That’s not going to work,” he said, mind flying to the potion brewing notes he needed to review, to the incomplete drafts of the Lounge’s new limited menu, to the heap of reminders sticking out of his agenda. “I won’t make as much progress if we train during the day.”
“Uh? And why the hell not.”
Azul blinked, and a still image of crystal clear waters, of shoals of fishes darting in every direction as a huge shadow draped above them, briefly colored the back of his eyelids.
“Too many distractions,” he ended up saying, after a moment of consideration. “It’s easier to concentrate at night.”
“What are you, nocturnal?”
Azul fixed him with a long, amused look. There was an awkward pause, after which Jamil’s eyes widened but a fraction, his face contorting into a series of conflicted expressions before settling for a small scowl.
“Right. Don’t answer that,” grumbled Jamil, bringing a hand to his temples, “but you are aware that the test will be right after lunch, right?”
“Certainly. Which is why our current learning environment is a better fit for me.”
The vice prefect still looked unconvinced. For someone who had made it a point to conceal his real opinions throughout his whole life, it was surprising how expressive he could be at times.
“Whatever,” Jamil relented at last, “our time has almost run out, anyway. We can give it one more try if you’re up to it, but that’s it.”
That was all Azul needed to hear. Ignoring whatever residue of queasiness was still left in his abdomen, he sealed the plastic bag with a loose knot, deposited it on the grass, and got up without so much of a groan.
Had Azul been in possession of his other limbs, he’d have given himself a pat on the back.
“Much obliged,” he said, as he mounted the broom once again.
He couldn’t have lifted himself up more than two feet when Jamil motioned him to stop.
“Hold on. Before that, I want you to fly to that tree, go around it, and come back,” he instructed, pointing to one of the tallest spruces at the edge of the field.
It was Azul’s turn to be skeptical. He had half a mind to ask the vice prefect what would be the purpose of said exercise, but the slight crinkling sound that came from his pocket when he turned around to face the other boy made him reconsider.
Jamil wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t request him to do something that didn’t serve a specific purpose— not when he knew the risks that violating one of his contracts entailed.
With a nod of his head, Azul hunched over the broom, made sure to keep its tip parallel to the ground, and started pouring more of his magic in until he felt a small kick. Steadying his input, he relaxed the grip on the handle and let the vehicle carry him to his destination.
It took him longer than he’d have liked, and had to slow down when it was time to circle the tree, but all in all he managed to make it back in less than two minutes without losing his balance.
“So?” he asked, landing in front of the other magician. “How was it?”
Jamil gave him a level look.
“Mediocre, but that was to be expected.”
Azul felt his eye twitch.
His classmate had quite the barbed tongue; that, he had grown to accept. Appreciate, even. But he wouldn’t tolerate being made to look like a fool at the expense of his time.
Pinning the corners of his mouth into a tight smile, he was about to retaliate in his own fashion when Jamil chose that moment to interrupt.
“Say, are you still feeling nauseous?”
The smile dropped from his face. Jamil had posed the question in such a casual way, Azul had no clue how to interpret it. Begrudgingly, he swallowed down his original retort and, ever so slowly, uttered: “No. Not at all.”
Jamil clicked his tongue.
“Damn.”
Wow. Azul arched an eyebrow. How rude.
Not to mention, he was pretty sure that this could be considered a waste of time and therefore, a breach of the contract terms.
As he started reaching out for his breast pocket, Jamil brought a fist to his chin, a troubled look crossing his features.
“So it’s not motion sickness…”
Azul’s hand stopped.
“Of course it isn’t,” he snorted. Although the symptoms were similar, he still remembered with aching clarity the nauseous feeling that had clung to him the day he got his first pair of glasses. It had been annoying, bumping into other students and stumbling over the many steps that connected each floor of the college, but it hadn’t been as debilitating as the full-on dizzy spells that hit him whenever he rode a broom.
Jamil pressed on.
“And you’re positive that you aren’t simply afraid of flying.”
“Indeed.” Azul adjusted his glasses, trying to get rid of the note of annoyance that had seeped into his tone. “Though I will admit, I find myself a tad uncomfortable with the idea of falling— an instinct that, as you must undoubtedly be aware, is a completely natural response to a perfectly rational danger.”
“Which is basically the same thing as saying that you’re scared of heights,” concluded Jamil, with an eye-roll that somehow managed to be the perfect blend of boredom and exasperation. “I’m afraid that a single lesson won’t cut it, then. You could try asking coach Vargas for an extension, but…”
Azul tightened his grip on the broomstick, imagining it to be the shell of a hermit crab, the body of a fish, the neck of a living creature struggling for air— something that would just listen to his explanations and not ask stupid questions and especially refrain from twisting his words into inane lies.
“For the last time,” he forced out through clenched teeth, each syllable scraping against the walls of his throat, bruising it, making it burn, “it’s not that.”
It wasn’t. Azul’s relationship with height was pretty much the same as everyone else’s: he tended to maintain a respectful distance, but would nevertheless engage if he deemed it necessary. He had survived getting hurled across the desert, oversaw and personally attended to the maintenance of the jellyfish chandeliers hanging from the Lounge’s ceiling whenever the twins were unavailable, and so long as he didn’t look down the stairwell (and took a few breaks during the ascent) he could walk the steps leading to the top of the astronomy tower without trouble.
Outside of PE class, it didn’t really hinder his daily life— so, it was fine.
Azul was fine.
Yet, for some reason, Jamil appeared to be unable to grasp that simple concept.
“Well then,” he spat, seemingly unaffected by Azul’s darkening mood, “how would you explain your symptoms? A mysterious allergy? A curse?”
“Nothing of the sort! It’s just that—”
(The broom won’t listen to me.)
(I can’t stop my body from seizing up.)
(Slow, dull, inept, lost cause lost cause lost—)
(Asking a fish to fly? What a ludicrous idea.)
Azul bit his tongue, trying to sort through the thoughts storming inside his skull for a proper response. After a moment, he licked his lips and stated: “There’s much to take into account. Up in the air. It makes it difficult to maintain a stable connection with my broom.”
“…what are you talking about?” Jamil’s eyes flitted upwards, before locking back on him. “There’s nothing up there.”
Azul propped the broom against his shoulder and let his attention wander upwards. A couple of stars winked teasingly at him, as if fighting for his attention.
Jade had once explained to him how the brightest ones were used by land and sea travelers alike as direction markers, to find their way home. The eel had just returned from a foraging trip in the mountains and had been gushing about his findings for what seemed like hours, and while Azul had refrained from voicing his doubts — when it came to Jade and his club, it was better to not engage at all — he hadn’t been able to prevent himself from scowling in the face of such a bold claim. It sounded too impractical for it to be true. Try as he might, he just couldn’t picture it, and even now that he was standing right under the same firmament that had supposedly been guiding all those adventurers to safer harbors, he couldn’t help but feel that the longer he tried making sense of it, the more he’d end up losing himself in its shimmering vastness.
It was fascinating. It was dangerous.
The sea didn’t forgive those foolish enough to be entranced by its many treasures.
“Forget it. You wouldn’t understand.” Azul dropped his head, suddenly wishing he were back at his dorm. Taking off his glasses, he ran a hand over his face, trying to rub away the blanket of exhaustion that had fallen over his skin.
Maybe he could take Jamil up on his offer and spend his lunch break on the field. It would delay his current projects, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Somewhat comforted by that thought, he slid the glasses back on and hoisted his broom up, readying himself for the walk back; but as soon as he started moving, a second broomstick materialized in front of his chest, and Azul had to freeze on the spot in order to avoid slamming his face into its coarse brush.
“Jamil-san—” he started, voice unwittingly falling to a lower timbre, weighed down by his underlying impatience. How fitting for him, then, to be interrupted by a tone mirroring his own.
“Try me.”
Azul’s gaze darted from the broom to the young man brandishing it.
“I beg your pardon?”
The broom was lowered, hitting him square in the chest, causing him to let out an undignified grunt.
“You’re always prattling on about how much potential I have, about how my talents have been catching your eye since our first year. Were those empty attempts at flattery? A way to cajole me into becoming one of your lackeys?” Before he could interject, Jamil flipped the broom over, pointed its tip to Azul’s throat and lifted his chin up.
Azul should have closed his eyes, then. He really should have, for he had seen what the other was capable of and knew from experience that to look straight into his eyes in the absence of an appropriate countermeasure would constitute an act of utmost folly.
He should have closed his eyes; yet, for some unfathomable reason, he didn’t: and with just one look, Azul found himself stripped of all his volition.
“Don’t you dare underestimate me, Azul.”
Jamil’s eyes weren’t red, but they might as well have been, for Azul couldn’t seem to muster the will to look away. All he could do was stare into those glowing embers as their warmth seeped into his skin— caressing his cheeks, coiling around his ribcage, singeing his lungs until every single one of his nerve endings was set alight. Until all the air in his body turned to liquid heat and his words were reduced to a mere breath.
“Never.”
For the first time that night, Azul saw the corner of those merciless lips tilt upwards.
“Then prove it.”
And Azul did, starting with the stars.
He explained how concepts such as the sun, the moon, the other celestial bodies were alien to him and most merfolks living in the deeper levels of the Coral Sea and that no matter how much he studied, how much he saw, he still couldn’t shake off the eerie feeling that the sky was nothing more than an endless, bottomless ocean he didn’t know how to navigate. He illustrated how each ocean layer was inhabited by a plethora of beasts; how some of them would tirelessly roam the shallower waters or probe the seafloor seeking nourishment, while others favored far more devious tactics, ranging from camouflaging themselves to merge right into the background to using baits to attract their preys.
He didn’t tell him about how, in his second year of primary school, the number of empty seats outgrew the number of students in his class. It wasn’t worth talking about.
What he did end up revealing — and only after amending the contract by adding a non-disclosure clause and acquiring a second signature set — was how sometimes, on days he was feeling particularly fatigued, he’d find his attention straying from Vargas’ instructions, latching instead onto every single thing that moved around him, every little sound that crossed his ears, anything that could indicate he needed to drop everything and just go.
How his eyes would restlessly inspect the canopy of the trees for dangers and hiding spots alike, because floating in the clear sky was far too similar to swimming in the open sea and its hunting grounds.
How a simple gust of wind was enough to make his skin crawl, because water didn’t just move on its own in the twilight zone.
How he still couldn’t wrap his head around the multitude of signals coming from his human body, and that more often than not trying to make sense of such a mess on top of keeping track of his surroundings proved to be… a bit much. Too much.
He recounted his circumstances to the best of his ability, whilst reserving himself the rights to leave out the most sensitive details. A contract was just a piece of paper, after all: it legitimated the punishments that would befall its transgressors, but wouldn’t be able to undo the damage done to his reputation if word got out, and Azul had lost too much of that already.
Jamil turned out to be a great, if inscrutable listener. Not once did he interrupt Azul, and while he’d usually interpret the lack of engagement as a sign that his speech wasn’t having the desired impact, the ever-present glint in the vice prefect’s eyes was enough to remind him that no, Azul had his undivided attention.
He couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing or not.
At some point he must have eventually gotten used to it, because when Azul finally reached the end of his account, he belatedly realized he had been leaning on his broom far more heavily than what would have been considered decorous for a man of his caliber.
“I think I get it now,” mused Jamil, who until then had been perching on his own broomstick as if it was nothing more than a park bench. “You were right. You are not afraid of flying…”
“Aha!” In a sudden burst of energy, Azul righted himself back up. “I had no doubts you’d come to see things my way—”
“It terrifies you.”
The rest of what Azul had intended to say, he ended up spluttering in a fit of pique.
Jamil hooped one leg around his broom’s handle and leaned forward, securing his balance.
“Wait here.”
A burst of energy hit the ground, sending stray grass blades flying in a cloud of dust, and before Azul could even begin to rectify Jamil’s unfounded conclusion, the other was already zipping past him, past the field, towards the building that housed the changing rooms.
The tips of Azul’s fingers itched.
He truly had an impeccable form. A couple of months back he wouldn’t have hesitated to concoct a plan that would have led such an ability to fall right into his grasp.
That’s all in the past, now.
Azul clenched his hands tight enough to make them ache all over.
He was a changed man: he wouldn’t let himself depend on other people’s talents as a last-ditch effort to make up for his own shortcomings— never again.
With nothing to do but wait, Azul spent the next minutes analyzing the moment Jamil had swept past him, the memory playing behind his eyelids like a crystal-clear recording on loop, all the while refusing to acknowledge how the tingle in his fingers seemed to grow in intensity with every replay.
Azul had been trying to hook his legs around the broom the same way his classmate did, when he saw said magician leap out of one of the building’s upper windows, nosediving towards him.
“Welcome b—”
His greeting was muffled by something being thrown at his head. It draped all over his face, obstructing his vision and sending him stumbling back in an effort not to trip.
The broom slipped from his fingers and hit the ground. Azul sent out a few words of thanks to the Seven, relieved he hadn’t started hovering yet, then tore the offending object off, scowling at how the motion knocked his glasses askew. As he raised a hand to right them up, his eyes fell on what exactly he was holding on to, and widened.
“Put it on.”
Azul held the article of clothing in front of him. Deep red fabric engulfed by a black flame motif, a spacious front pocket, three stripes in the colors of Scarabia running across its ribbing. It was bulkier than anything he had in his wardrobe and, at a glance, seemed to be a size or two bigger than what he was used to wearing.
He stared at it for a long, hard minute. Then began folding it in a neat square.
“I’m sure that your fashion sense is excellent, Jamil-san, but this is hardly the appropriate time to play dress up, given the circumstances…”
“Believe me,” muttered the other, with so much disgust oozing from his voice that Azul was tempted to give him his plastic bag back, “the last thing I want is for any part of your body to come into contact with any of my stuff, but I highly doubt that you own a hoodie yourself.” He looked away. “So just do us both a favor and stop complaining.”
Jamil had hit the nail right on the head: apart from his Ceremony Robes — and he’d sooner fail PE than wear such a prestigious outfit to a flight lesson — Azul didn’t own anything of the sort.
Why would he? Ever since coming to land he had meticulously studied the subject of terrestrial fashion, and had reached the conclusion that apparels played a crucial part in the overall success of any branding strategy. Appearances mattered: one could never underestimate the power of first impressions when it came to greeting new customers and potential investors. Azul’s wardrobe was the fruit of countless weeks of research, of trial and error, of standing in front of the mirror for hours to an end taking note of each and every flaw marring his body and compromising, adjusting, finding ways to make them work.
In light of all those reasons, it made sense for him to be slightly reluctant when it came to wearing anything that could ruin the image he had so carefully built.
But then again, Jamil was the only one there.
Azul tilted his head towards the vice prefect, eying the way he kept massaging his neck as if there was a particularly hard knot he was having trouble getting rid of.
He had said it himself: he wouldn’t have lent Azul his hoodie if he didn’t believe it was a necessary sacrifice to their cause. Azul couldn’t fathom how wearing that particular article of clothing would help, but he had tried far more baffling strategies in the past week and it would be hypocritical of him to shy away from one of the meekest ones.
It didn’t have to be more complicated than that.
Azul heaved a sigh, turned the hoodie upside down and started putting it on.
It was heftier than he had imagined, but slid over his head with minor fuss. Azul had been correct in his judgment: that thing was definitely oversized. Its sleeves reached all the way to the middle of his palms, leaving only his fingers uncovered, while the sweatshirt itself ended right under his pelvis in a somewhat baggy mound he immediately rushed to flatten by stretching the hem further down his legs.
It didn’t exactly work, for the elastic rigging kept springing back up every time he moved, but that didn’t stop him from trying again.
Azul pursed his lips.
It was unflattering, and didn’t compliment his figure at all, and he suspected that the warm colors clashed with his complexion, but without a mirror he couldn’t really tell.
(It was also surprisingly cozy, and he found the added weight to his shoulders to be kind of soothing, but he’d never admit it out loud.)
Deciding that it’d be in his best interest to temporarily throw in the towel, he turned to the cause of his current predicament and waited for further instructions.
Only they didn’t come, because Jamil kept staring at him, apparently deep in thought
Now, Azul was rather used to being the center of attention. He thrived on it, even. Gone were the days spent keeping his head low and hiding in his octopus pot. Ever since he left the Coral Sea he had studied hard to memorize land customs— worked himself to the bone so that he could establish himself as the embodiment of social, academic, entrepreneurial success. If respect and admiration made people more amenable, feelings of envy and resentment were just as easy to exploit, and Azul took no small amount of delight in luring out those stares… when that happened on his terms, that’s it.
He didn’t know what to make of those gray eyes: so, he cleared his throat.
Jamil’s breath hitched. Azul watched him blink, rapidly pulling himself out of whatever reverie had possessed him.
“Ah. My bad,” he delivered in a completely deadpan tone, shaking his head. “I had underestimated how awkward you’d look in it.”
Azul crossed his arms. Tried to convince himself that the icicles puncturing his chest were merely due to his mounting indignation.
“Oh, I’m so, so sorry that the result of your brilliant idea is so painful to look at.”
“Ugh…” A complicated expression settled over Jamil’s face, one he quickly schooled back into a disgruntled frown. “It wouldn’t be so bad if you stopped your fidgeting.”
“I’m not fidgeting,” Azul assured him, letting go of the hem of the sweatshirt that still wouldn’t smoothen out.
“You most definitely are,” sighed Jamil. “Now, stay still…”
In one quick stride he closed the distance between them, causing Azul’s body to stiffen, suddenly wary; but the other acted fast and in one swift motion, Azul’s head was enveloped in a cocoon of pure warmth.
His muscles relaxed by a tiny fraction.
“There we go,” said Jamil, who was pulling at the drawstrings of the hoodie, making the field and the sky and the stars progressively disappear until his face was the only thing Azul could perceive.
“Hopefully this will help…” mumbled Jamil, with an unguarded sort of candor that Azul couldn’t recognize nor decipher, and which he therefore ended up ascribing to the fabric currently pressing against his ears, turning every noise down to a gentle hush.
“Azul?” asked Jamil, who was still too close, too observant, too— “You good?”
No. No, he definitely wasn’t. How could he be, when he was stuck into what felt like a cottony oven? When every breath he took brought to his nose the pungent aroma of ground pepper, the bitter notes of turmeric, and a whole variety of other spices all mixed up together into a blend his brain was furiously trying to break down?
Jamil took a step back.
“I swear to the Seven that if you try so much as to dry heave while wearing my shirt I will use my Unique Magic to seal off your mouth regardless of whether you choke or not.”
An airy, tingling sort of pressure built up within his chest, as if his lungs were being filled with a bottle’s worth of freshly opened champagne.
It must have been one of the most ridiculous threats he had ever been on the receiving end of, but it was also the one that showed the most promise, and the irony of that notion combined with Jamil’s peeved scowl was what ultimately shredded the last of his composure away.
“Pfft—!”
A single, tiny titter tumbled out of his quivering lips. It was immediately followed by another one, and then one more, and before he realized what was happening Azul found himself holding his sides, at the mercy of a relentless giggling fit that blurred his vision and left his whole frame aching.
Thoughts ranging from They can see you to You’re leaving yourself wide open popped up between each hiccup, begging him to get a grip, and soon, because all spontaneity has ever rewarded him with was further harassment and more nights spent gluing his fragmented ego back together; but somehow those preoccupations felt far too removed from him to matter and all they really succeeded in was making him laugh harder.
And Jamil. Jamil appeared to be visibly unsettled, frozen in place like that. He was probably under the impression that he had completely lost it, wasn’t he?
Pity. This blunder might have just cost Azul all the progress he had made with his Scarabian classmate during the last few months. It was definitely a shame, but Azul couldn’t really find it in himself to be too bothered by it, because—
“You say t-that, and yet…!” he tried, fighting against the latest onslaught of giggles to make himself heard. “And yet you’ve willingly lent me such a precious item while being fully aware of said risk!”
Jamil’s eyes widened. “That’s—”
“To think that you’d treasure our friendship this much...” mused Azul, flicking a stray tear off the corner of his eye before it could topple over.
“I—” Jamil cut himself off with a grunt, arms trembling with barely restrained anger. “We aren’t friends. We’ll never be friends, so get it out of your head!”
“Of course, of course. Silly me…” Azul brought a loose fist to his lips, trying to smother his grin behind the thickness of his sleeve, more out of smugness than politeness. He caught a whiff of nutmeg and some other seasoning hidden in the fabric, but before he could pinpoint what that was, Jamil picked up his broomstick and threw it at him.
“Get on,” was what Azul heard as he hopelessly fumbled for the cleaning appliance. “Go up ten meters. Keep looking forward.”
“Forward?” he asked, once he had his hands firmly clasped around its shaft. “What for?”
“Because you—” Jamil looked away, grumbling something under his breath that was too muffled for Azul to catch. When he was done, he took a moment to clear his throat and resumed with, “Just… trust me when I say that’s going to drastically increase your chances of passing tomorrow’s exam.”
Azul narrowed his eyes. Trust was an easy word to throw around, an effective shortcut to sidestep difficult confrontations, shut down arguments and get your way with overly sentimental dolts. Without a collateral to back it up, trust was just as empty as any other claim.
Jamil seemed to sense his diffidence, and swiftly added, “In fact, it’s an extremely handy flying technique that has been passed down the Viper family line for generations. I guarantee you’ll see a difference.”
Azul still wasn’t convinced, but given that he had already secured Jamil’s collaboration through written, binding means, he decided to let the matter slide. The fact that he couldn’t exactly talk back to Jamil without calling into question the effectiveness of his family’s — and by extension, the Asims’ — methods was a strong incentive to drop said topic, too.
“Forward it is, then,” he said with a shrug, before mounting his broom.
A couple of jumps later he was back in the air.
He had expected that with Jamil’s sweatshirt in the picture it’d have taken him more tries to calibrate his magical output accordingly, but apparently his body had already gotten used to the additional weight.
Azul didn’t let himself dwell on that fact. He had more pressing matters to attend to, like getting the damn broom to take off. He closed his eyes—
“Don’t do that.”
—he didn’t close his eyes, and instead started to gradually feed the handle more of his magic. Moments later, he felt a jolt, followed by the familiar traction of air collecting under his feet, and before he realized it he was already rising past the dry shrubbery of the forest floor, past the sturdy trunks coated in resin, past the crooked branches laden with needles. Azul kept his gaze fixed up ahead and didn’t stop pouring energy until the last of the tree tops dipped below his vision and the never-ending mantle of the night became all he could see.
He came to a halt, releasing a tremulous breath. It left his mouth in the form of a white cloud which dissipated in a matter of seconds.
He had never been that high up, before. But was that enough? Normally he’d be able to determine how far he had gone by examining his surroundings, but between the hood narrowing his field of view and Jamil’s instructions to keep facing forward, Azul surmised he’d have to find another way.
Jamil would know. He was bound to have a good depth perception, given how much time he spent up in the sky. But Jamil was watching him from the ground, their usual roles now reversed, and the last thing Azul wanted was to wake up the whole Sage’s Island by yelling at the top of his lungs.
Once again, he was on his own.
A single shiver ran down his spine, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. Azul tucked his head between his shoulders and stilled, bracing himself for whatever was to come.
Nothing really happened. The narrow strip of sky lying ahead of him was unchanging in its nature, presenting no traces of shadows twisting under the moonlight, nor any suspicious movement to keep track of. No ominous screeches arising from the nearby woods, closing in from a direction he couldn’t pinpoint; and even if there were, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear them with the hood pressing down on his ears, filling them with the sound of his heartbeat. The fabric was so thick, in fact, that he barely felt anything aside from his own body heat and the occasional brushing of hair against his forehead.
No dizzy spells, no heart palpitations, no overwhelming sense of doom.
It was just him and his broom, suspended in a manageable, little nook of the sky.
Surrounded by nothing but darkness, Azul became increasingly aware of the fact that his legs were still dangling in the void, his hands and thighs the only things keeping him anchored to the broomstick; and yet the thought, while unnerving, didn’t chill him to the bone, didn’t send his mind whirring with what ifs and morbid scenarios. The broom was a solid presence underneath him, content with the steady flow of nourishment it was receiving, and something about the constant thrums running up the handle told him that it wouldn’t try anything as long as he kept that connection going.
Which left him with a decision to make.
He could go back. Ask Jamil for pointers, take him up on his offer to have a second session the next day, and head back to his dorm. Or he could go a little bit higher, just to make sure he actually reached those blasted ten meters.
Both were extremely valid courses of action. Feasible and fairly risk-free.
But then again, there was this other thing. This itch under his skin, much worse than the one he had felt back on the ground, spreading out and encompassing his whole body. An excited buzz that only seemed to grow stronger as Azul contemplated the glimpse of possibility extending before him, within arm’s reach.
Azul knew that if he were to reach forward, he’d be able to pluck it out of that bejeweled sky and finally make it his. He also knew that it’d be an extremely arduous feat to pull off, that his PE grades were a clear testament to his inadequacy, and that the odds of him falling to his death were so high that he’d be out of his mind to even consider going through with it.
That being said, there was also a chance it might go well; and because Azul had always been bad at suppressing his own desires, he leaned his body forward, tapped into the connection he shared with the broom, and proceeded to do what he did best: visualize his success.
Go.
He brought his calves closer to his body, going for a more aerodynamic form.
Just move already.
Imagined two parallel lines running on both of his sides, fixed his gaze on a random point in front of him, tried to remember what it felt like to be propelled forward by a force originating from within himself.
Come on…!
A kick, catching him off-guard, causing the broom to tilt downwards. As Azul adjusted his stance to provide a counterbalance to that thrust, he noticed some of his silvery locks swaying in place, the cold air hitting his cheeks head-on, and realized with a jolt that he was doing it. He was actually moving.
And he was going fast.
“No, no, no,” he managed to get out, the rest of his pleas trapped in the tangled mess that his insides were quickly twisting into.
The stars were blurring together, his hair kept getting in his eyes, and whenever he blinked it felt as if he was back inside one of those underwater currents, weightless and incorporeal and perfectly willing to be reduced to a plaything of the ocean if it meant he could bask in a portion of its tremendous power and pretend it was his.
Only this time, there was no pretending.
Azul wasn’t riding a current— he was the one fueling it; and as its rightful creator, it only made sense he could shape it however he wanted.
With a firm yank, Azul pulled the wooden handle towards his chest. It resulted in an abrupt stop that had him holding onto the broom for dear life in order to avoid sliding down its shaft, followed by a couple of violent full spins that had him swallow back a mouthful of bile.
Eventually, everything came to a still. Azul pushed the handle down and righted himself, breathing heavily.
Again.
He lowered it some more, leaning down with it until the broom began moving again, but at a slower pace.
Experimentally, he tried tilting his body to the right, and was pleased to see that the broom seemed to move together with him, following the imaginary curve he had painted in his mind.
Azul tightened the angle and drew three complete circles in the air; then he straightened up, leaned his weight to the left and proceeded to do the same counterclockwise until he grew dizzy from the motion.
He gradually pulled the handle closer to his chest, and this time the broom came to a wobbly, yet thankfully gentle halt.
The beginning of an incredulous chuckle bubbled past his lips, breaking the silence. He heard it grow in volume and promptly clamped his mouth shut, fearing what it’d evolve into if he let it run amok any longer. It didn’t matter if every fiber of his being was rejoicing, if he wanted nothing more than to thrust his fist up towards the sky and cry out until his vocal chords gave out— he couldn’t risk it.
But he still allowed his face to break into a smile. He deserved at least that much; after all, this was the definite proof that given enough time, Azul could succeed in anything he put his mind to. It didn’t matter if merfolk couldn’t walk, run, jump or fly: the sky had been his limit, and now that he had breached it, nothing would stop him from reaching new, unprecedented heights.
“Could you stop grinning like that? It’s grossing me out.”
Someone let out a startled yelp. It couldn’t possibly have been him. All the oxygen circulating in his body had been replaced by abject, unadulterated horror the moment he started falling.
Only he didn’t, not quite. Because as he dropped, he could still feel the broom, and the broom was waiting for him to feed it— so he did. He gave it everything he had, and held on tight.
There was a burst of energy, its recoil so intense that it made his brain rattle against his skull, and then Azul was shooting upwards and past a distressed Jamil.
“Shit!”
A moment later, Jamil popped back beside him.
“Azul, calm down!”
I’m trying, is what he wanted to say. He could feel his mouth moving, shaping words, but between the wind whizzing in his ears and the faint ringing echoing throughout his head it was impossible to tell whether they had landed or not.
“You can! You did it before!” Jamil said something else as well, but Azul was having trouble hearing him, when he sounded so far away.
His vision was starting to grow a little fuzzy around the edges. He tried blinking, but the black spots kept multiplying and burning holes in his line of sight and truly, maybe that was for the best. Maybe it’d be better if he couldn’t see what would happen to him, once his magic ran out.
A hand closed around his own. It was cold and clammy, and it might have been clutching his fingers a bit too tightly, but Azul’s body was so numb that it welcomed the additional pressure nonetheless.
Jamil was outright shouting, now. Calling his name. Asking him to keep his eyes open, to turn around.
But he couldn’t. He was frozen in place, clinging to the broom with all his might. If he dared to move, he was sure he’d fall.
“I won’t let you!”
Jamil’s voice was raw. Urgent. He was always so careful about keeping his emotions in check around him, about stifling them under deadpan tones and contemptuous sighs, that the day of his overblot Azul had been utterly swept away by their sheer, unapologetic vehemence.
He was glad he got to hear them again, even if for but a moment.
“Just look at me!”
His hand was trembling. Jamil’s was too. Trying to hold on, but steadily losing purchase.
“Azul—”
He didn’t want it to let go.
Azul would never forget the sight that greeted him when he opened his eyes.
Twin broomsticks, knocking one against the other, their tips overlapping at an obtuse angle.
Callused fingers, grasping at his hand with enough force to leave faint, reddening trails along his skin.
A downpour of stars, streaking the night with their shimmering wakes and scattering diamond dust across the horizon.
And standing right in the middle of that astral storm, with braids thrashing furiously in the wind and beads of sweat rolling down his clenched jaw, was Jamil.
Jamil, who upon meeting his gaze blinked, furrowed his brow, bit his lip, and then fixed Azul with eyes so fierce they burnt through the ice clogging his veins, setting his nerve endings aflame and filling his world with crimson.
Jamil, who was right there, and not an indistinct spot so high up in the sky Azul had to crane his neck and squint just to keep track of. Not a fleeting afterimage that burned his eyes and made his chest ache while the real thing was hundreds of feet above him, heading off to somewhere he couldn’t possibly hope to follow.
Until now.
Azul tore his hand away from the broom’s handle, slammed it on top of Jamil’s, and squeezed. Jamil flinched, words stuttering to a halt as his eyes latched onto his fingers and widened, losing their red hue.
He must have been in pain. Jade and Floyd had always teased him about his vice grip. Strong enough to crush rocks and tight enough to shut down any escape attempts.
Azul should have probably eased up his grip. But how could he, when all his limbs were itching, itching, covered in phantom rings of muscles that kept twitching and cramping and closing over nothing, their purpose unfulfilled, in a maddening cycle that just wouldn’t stop? His hands were no suckers, but they were enough, and he needed this, this foothold, this last bastion of stability in a world that was quickly losing its shape.
So Azul kept holding that hand, sucking in breath after breath, willing his lungs to cooperate, his head to stop spinning, until eventually, that hand squeezed back.
Breathing became a little bit easier after that.
The pressure was barely there, but it was just enough for Azul to become aware of the erratic pulses thrumming under the other’s skin. They were faint, but real, and Azul was quick to hold on to that sensation and use it as a compass to navigate through the hurricane of signals firing off inside his brain, until he finally reached the only one that truly mattered. The heart of the problem. The unruly vacuum that had been bleeding him dry ever since he left it unattended, stealing from him what was rightfully his.
It was time to rectify that.
Azul slammed that door close, cutting off the flow of magic altogether. He waited until his momentum began to lose its battle against gravity, until he could feel Jamil scrambling to slow down before he knocked both of them off balance, his own broom unable to sustain their combined weights; then Azul reestablished the connection, fighting against that greedy pull asking for more, more, more, and forced himself to release his energy at a slower rate.
It was hard, adjusting. Discharging so much magic all at once had thrown his senses into disarray, making it difficult to estimate and regulate how much he was actually sending.
But he managed. Somehow. Focusing on the beat drumming under his fingertips helped.
Little by little, the world realigned itself on its axis. The stars slowed their descent, before stopping altogether.
His vision had mostly cleared, but it still took him a while to realize they had come to a stop.
And then they simply sat there, not daring to speak. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable silence, but rather a much-needed break that Azul fully intended to use in order to get his breath back under control. He wasn’t going to think about what had just transpired. Not yet. Not when he was hanging on a creaky piece of wood at Seven knows how many meters from solid ground, and—
A twinge, deep in his lungs, tore a particularly nasty cough out of him.
Right. He wasn’t supposed to think about that either. It was difficult to concentrate, when his thoughts kept knocking against each other like frenzied pinballs.
His only consolation came from the fact that he wasn’t the only one having trouble gathering their wits. Sure, Azul was still gasping for air, but he had never seen Jamil looking this distressed while riding a broom— all tensed up, hunched over it, forehead facing the ground. If not for the firmness behind his long, deep inhales, Azul would have assumed he was fighting against a big stomachache, or…
Oh. Azul was still crushing his hand.
Before he could think about it too much, he pried off his fingers and immediately wrapped them over the handle of his broomstick, hating how that momentary lack of stability had been enough to bring the vertigo back in full force.
Azul had fully expected Jamil to withdraw at once, to jump at opportunity, snatch his hand back and save his fingers from further pain.
But he didn’t. He didn’t move at all. The only sign indicating he was aware of his newfound freedom came in the form of a soft sigh, and Azul—
Azul didn’t have enough oxygen to think, nevermind trying to decipher whatever that was. So he averted his gaze, burrowed his chin in the soft fabric of his hoodie, and kept focusing on his breathing exercises, ignoring how with every new intake the night air seemed to take on the fresh undertones of coriander.
He didn’t know how long they sat there, but eventually the adrenaline that had swamped his system began to wear off, soon imitated by the oppressive weight constricting his lungs. The nausea receded, dwindling to a bizarre, yet not so unpleasant, fluttery feeling which disappeared altogether when Jamil drew back his hand and righted himself up.
“Are you…” Jamil bit his lip. Looked away, then back to his face. “Can you still fly?”
Azul stiffened. Felt the muscles at the corners of his mouth drag upwards, spurred by the need to taunt, deflect, distract.
He immediately forced them down. It wasn’t like he could hide the quakes rattling his whole frame, or the hiss that accompanied his inhales whenever he took a breath that was slightly deeper than the rest. Masking his weariness wouldn’t bring him any closer to the ground either, and oh, how he missed it. He wanted nothing more than to find himself a nice and dark burrow to curl up in and let his consciousness sink into oblivion.
Six blissful hours of respite: that was all he needed, and then he’d be back his usual, unwavering, high-performing self.
“I…” His voice was so raspy, it felt as if a fork was harrowing away at his windpipe. Azul swallowed, fighting back a wince. He needed to press on, to tell Jamil what they both needed to hear.
A simple yes, and Jamil would escort him back to the safety of the ground with no questions asked, mercifully bringing that nightmarish experience to a close.
A nod, and Azul would return to the field the very next day, wait his turn among the whispers and backhand comments and hollow encouragements of his coursemates, and then push off the ground while pretending he wasn’t, yet again, about to prove all of them right.
“Azul?”
Jamil was studying his face, still waiting for an answer.
Azul cleared his throat. Swallowed again. And, before he could overthink it, forced out a word that he would have never allowed himself to utter under normal circumstances; a word that could strip an individual of all their authority while leaving their deepest self on display for others to exploit; a word that, because of those reasons, held more power than any other spell in the world.
“Please.”
And he hated it. He hated how it sounded more like a question than a request, a plea rather than a proposition. How he couldn’t just take it all back and fake ignorance, preventing his last scrap of dignity from crumbling.
He hated it, hated it, hated it, and he hated himself for going through with this— and on any other day it would have mattered, but not tonight, not when he’d sacrificed so much to reach this point, not when he still had so much more to give.
He’d have never forgiven himself if he had let this opportunity go to waste; thus he squared his shoulders, kept his chin high, and watched with rapt attention as the look of utter bewilderment that had settled on Jamil’s features was hastily schooled back into a pensive scowl, as if trying to figure out what possible scheme could lie behind what Azul believed to be his third most humiliating display of weakness since the time he had first tried to walk on two legs.
“You…” Jamil moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. “…are unbelievable.”
And this time, when Azul felt the telltale tug at the corner of his mouth, he welcomed the motion in its entirety.
Jamil’s expression soured. “That wasn’t meant to be a compliment, you know,” he grumbled, but there was no real malice behind his tone. Azul wanted nothing more than to point that out and tease another reaction out of him, except that he didn’t need to, not really, because right then Jamil’s lips curled into a lopsided smirk that stole Azul’s breath away together with whatever retort he had at the ready.
He leaned back, letting the momentum pull his broom from underneath Azul’s, eyes never straying from his even as he drifted farther away.
“Follow me,” he said, voice full of promises and mischief, before he turned on his heel and started his descent.
And as Azul trailed after him, doing his best to imitate his swerves and maneuvers, he couldn’t help but concede that maybe Jade and all those travelers had been right about the stars all along.
He only noticed they had reached the ground when his legs folded onto themselves and he ended up hunching over the broom as it gently deposited them on top of a patch of grass.
And just like that, the connection was gone.
Giving his body a moment of respite, he opted to stay there, breathing in the scent of moist earth mingling with the delicate notes of clove.
At one point, a plastic bag was thrust under his nose. He pushed it away. His mind was spinning, but for a different reason altogether.
Belatedly, he realized that Jamil had been talking to him for quite a while. It must have been rather important, judging by the rueful tone he was using. Azul couldn’t really bring himself to listen, because…
“—so, for what it’s worth, I’m—”
“Jamil-san,” he muttered, effectively shushing the other down.
“Jamil-san.” In one move that had the muscles of his legs catch on fire, he sprung up to his feet and turned to his interlocutor. “I did it! I was flying!”
Jamil’s voice was low, tentative. “I’d hardly call that flying, but…”
“But it was!” Azul clutched Jamil’s shoulders, choosing to tactfully ignore the full-body flinch that resulted from that action. “I flew high enough, then exercised enough control to perform all the aerial maneuvers featured in the first chapters of the flight manual and that, therefore, are most likely to be in tomorrow’s test.”
“Yes, yes…”
“With this, there’s no way I won’t pass this class!”
At that, Jamil pursed his lips. “I think that you’re getting ahead of yourself. And in more than one way,” he added, throwing a dirty look at Azul’s right arm.
“And I believe you’re gravely underestimating the power of our teamwork.” Azul gave the vice housewarden’s shoulders a light squeeze and stepped back, his fingers lingering for a moment longer before withdrawing. “With a bit of training and your insightful tips, I’ll have the art of flying mastered in time for next month’s practical test.”
“Next month’s, you say…” Azul noticed Jamil’s eyes idly trailing after his retreating hand; saw them widen, just a bit, as a flicker of confusion flashed across them; watched them darken as his classmate proceeded to examine his own fingernails, and then narrow some more when he caught Azul staring.
Before Azul could inquire about what was that all about, Jamil stuffed both of his hands in his front pocket and scoffed: “For that, you’d need a miracle.”
Azul gave a small hum. Tilted his head to the side. Felt his lips curl into a faint smile.
“How very fortunate for me, then, to have found you.”
Jamil took one look at his face and promptly burst out laughing. Which was a perfectly valid reaction, considering that Azul had meant to say that as a joke, as a light-hearted quip that could somehow ease the tension between them.
Except that, somewhere along the line — maybe because Azul was still a tad distracted by what had transpired the moment before; maybe because the exhaustion of the last few days was finally catching up to him; or maybe, possibly, because Azul didn’t believe in miracles, or luck, or destiny, but he did believe in coincidences, and meeting Jamil, being sorted in the same class, getting to see his true colors had to have been some of the best darn coincidences of his life — Azul must have lost sight of his original intentions, because, try as he might, he couldn’t detect any trace of humor hidden within his words.
Stripped of their intended levity, they sank, gently, inexorably within him, gaining volume and newfound sense of importance and filling him with a strange sort of peace that rendered him unable to do anything else other than watch Jamil as he doubled up, frame shaking, tousled hair falling all over his face, one of his golden ornaments on the verge of coming off his braid.
Something must have shown on his face, though, because when Jamil glanced back at Azul it took him but a moment to sober up, the snickers that had kept spilling out from between his fingers withering and dispersing like sand to the wind in a matter of seconds.
“You can’t be serious,” he said, after a beat, the incredulity in his tone giving way to a silent accusation. “What makes you think I’m going to keep tutoring, or better yet, have any sort of interaction with you after tonight?”
Azul glanced at Jamil’s broomstick and found it resting on the ground to the side of them, the mysterious red pouch fastened to the wooden handle through multiple knots of its drawstrings.
“Oh, just a hunch,” he mused, walking up to the two objects. “According to the syllabus, spider glands are going to be featured quite heavily this semester in Potionology.”
“Your point being?”
Jamil’s tone was firm, yet casual. Azul knew what sort of expression would meet his eyes if he chose to face him, and decided that such a pointless lie was not worth looking at. Instead, Azul crouched over the pouch and carefully slid it off the wooden handle.
“I have reasons to believe that forming a partnership with me would prove to be extremely beneficial for you as well.”
His indirect proposal was met with a loud snort. “That’s scarcely a compelling argument, considering that you’re not the only student in our class.”
“And yet, you’ve come to me for this.” Azul stood up and gave the bag a small shake. “You don’t trust me, but you’re confident in my capabilities— or else, you wouldn’t have accepted that deal,” he observed, pulling on its drawstrings until he got the rim to loosen up, before extracting the plastic bag that had been piquing his interest since the first time he had laid his eyes on it.
Immediately, Jamil raised his voice. “If you let them escape, I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t worry,” Azul reassured him, flashing one of his trademark smiles at him, “it won’t come to that.”
Truth to be told, he doubted that any of the bugs laying at the bottom of the bag would ever move again, but refrained from voicing his suspicions. As soon as he opened the bag his nostrils were assaulted by the smell of smoke and charcoal, and a quick survey of the content confirmed that most of the nymphs had been badly charred, their exoskeletons blackened and partly incinerated.
Azul could feel the muscles of his abdomen contract in preparation for a good-hearted chuckle, but he managed to reign it in. He was treading a delicate path, and one wrong step would cost him greatly.
So he wordlessly took the (only two) salvageable specimens out, got rid of all the dirt and useless remains by turning the bag upside down and deposited them back inside, sealing the bag with a knot for good measure. There was no saving those poor creatures, but at least their bodies were still intact and would likely withstand their imminent dissection without turning to ash.
Azul pocketed the bag and turned back to Jamil, not missing the way his shoulders seemed to relax after the offending object disappeared from his sight.
“You know what I can do,” he stated, drawing closer to him. “My limitations, my strengths… you’ve witnessed them, just like I’ve witnessed yours.” Azul stopped right in front of him, countering Jamil’s unimpressed gaze with his own self-assured smirk. “And I know that we both want more.”
Azul concluded his speech by extending a hand towards the vice housewarden, who merely spared it a glance before rebuking, “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the problem lies not so much in your academic prowess as in everything else about you?”
And really, Azul had been expecting a comment like that. In fact, it was Jamil’s preferred way to turn down whatever offer Azul put before him, although it was just as effective in deterring him as any other tactic.
What he didn’t expect was the sudden surge of resentment that welled up inside him, his ever present impatience mixing up with molten debris of disappointment, blending into some toxic concoction that corroded his blood vessels and made the smile on his lips taste like venom.
Azul kept it in place. Willed himself to ride the sensation out, waiting until he felt it recede into a simmering pool he could readily tap into. Flexed his fingers.
Then he went in for the kill.
“So what?” He inched closer, words spilling out of him in a tranquil and poised trickle. “You’ll keep undermining yourself and hindering your own success out of pettiness?”
Jamil narrowed his eyes, leaning further away from him. “I’m not—”
There was a faint jingle, and Azul’s hand darted out, catching the ornamental bell as it started plummeting to the ground.
“Do you wish to keep hiding, then?” he pressed on, watching as Jamil’s attention flitted from Azul’s closed fingers to his own loosening braid. “To keep making up excuses, biding your time for some grand, chimerical opportunity that will at last turn your life around?”
Jamil’s mouth stayed shut, but the clenched fist at his side spoke volumes.
Azul rolled the trinket between his fingers, entertaining the idea of brushing his thumb across those tense knuckles, of coaxing those digits into unfurling for him, of pressing the ornament into that calloused palm and holding it there until Jamil’s hand got affected by the same tingling sensation Azul had to put up with whenever he caught sight of the vice prefect.
It was a nice thought. Maybe one day, when he’ll be certain said action won’t be followed by an instant punch to his face, he’d act upon it. But in order to reach that stage Azul had to first get Jamil to listen to him— which involved proving once and for all the point he had been trying to get across ever since that first time they had paired up in Crewel’s Potionology lab.
And because every venture worth pursuing required small sacrifices, Azul lowered himself onto the grass and propped himself up on one knee.
In front of him, Jamil went eerily still. As Azul reached forward, he saw those slender fingers twitch, once, and had to wonder for a moment whether that had been an involuntary reaction or a warning.
But Jamil didn’t slap his hand away when Azul took the end of the unraveling braid between his fingers; he didn’t tug it out of Azul’s grasp the moment he started untangling the strands, taking utmost care in dividing them up into three even sections; he didn’t tell him off as he proceeded to cross each partition over the others, twisting and looping and weaving them together.
And Azul knew he had never come that close to winning.
“You were meant for greatness, Jamil,” he said, with the barest amount of insistence, entwining the last of his hair into a neat plait. “Let me help you achieve it.”
The reply came in after a brief pause, in the form of a dry, harsh mutter.
“Why, so that you can put a collar around my neck and cash in on your investment later on?”
It was a valid concern: from his personal connections to the wide array of skills at his disposal, Jamil was a gold mine of possibilities waiting to be acted upon, and both of them would know he was lying if he were to deny being interested in the many perks that a connection with the vice prefect would provide.
But Jamil had still worded it as a question, and Azul wanted, needed to believe that buried beneath all that cynicism and distrust and grief there was a part of him that longed and yearned and hoped for something more. Something better.
Azul held the accessory between his fingers, the sweet chime of the golden bells marking the finality of his next words.
“Because one day I'll be seated at the top of this world,” he vowed, sliding the ornament up along the braid until he felt some resistance, “and it pains me to think I might not be able to share that view with you.”
The sad truth was that Azul wasn’t a genie; he wasn’t as powerful as the Sea Witch; hell, he wasn’t even the best magician their college had to offer.
Still, Azul would grant Jamil Viper anything he longed and yearned and hoped for if that meant he’d accept him in his life.
Brushing his thumb against the bells one last time to make sure they were correctly secured to the braid, Azul lifted his gaze to face the consequences of his actions.
“So, what do you— ack!”
Jamil’s arm dived past his shoulders and yanked the hood all the way over Azul’s eyes, obscuring his vision before he could renew the invitation.
“That’s such a bold claim, for someone who can barely balance on his broom.”
Azul dragged the hem back, just in time to see Jamil turning to his right, a broomstick sailing smoothly into his open palm.
“Jamil-san?” he called out, trying to get a read on the situation. Did he overdo it? Had he been so confident in his approach that he missed some important social clues?
Jamil adjusted his hold around the handle, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and turned back to him.
“Also, your braiding technique sucks. On so many levels.”
Azul blinked, dread morphing into knots of confusion. “…eh?”
Jamil’s scowl only deepened. “Not only did it take you ages to finish it, but at one point you crossed the wrong section over, see?” The braid was tugged away from Azul’s fingers just to be promptly shoved back under his nose. “Now there’s this hideous bulge breaking the pattern. And what’s more, you didn’t drive the ornament up the hair with enough force, so now it’s bound to fall off again. Not to mention…”
“That’s quite alright, I assure you that you’ve raised enough points to rest your case!” Azul cut him off, feeling his face starting to boil. “It wasn’t my best job, but in my defense I was in a rush! With some more time, I can—”
He reached forward, but before he could touch the braid it was yanked out of his reach.
“Leave it!” Jamil hastily brushed his hair back, hesitated for a moment, and then lifted his own hood to cover them up the best he could. “It’s… there’s no point in fixing it, since I’ll just undo them all before heading to bed,” he explained, not meeting his eyes.
Hiding, Azul’s mind supplied, and suddenly he became aware of the fact that Jamil was still clutching his hood, that that had perhaps been the first time he had willingly shared a glimpse of his daily life with Azul, and the implications, the possibilities that spurred from that small concession— they made his throat go dry.
“Ah.” Azul lowered his hand. “I see,” he forced himself to say, hoping he didn’t sound as out of it as he was feeling.
“I can show you how it is done. Someday.” The words were ushered out slowly, as if Jamil was deliberately trying them out, feeling how they tasted like on his tongue. By the way he furrowed his brow, he mustn’t have reached a definite conclusion, but Azul reveled in that uncertainty all the same. “But not tonight. It’s gotten late. You better start making your way back, if you care about upholding your end of the bargain.”
“Actually—” Azul fished the phone out of his pocket, unlocked the screen and playfully waved it in front of Jamil’s face. “There’s still three minutes left. I set a timer.”
“Figures,” muttered Jamil, in what Azul would have mistaken for his usual flat tone hadn’t the vice housewarden chosen that moment to turn his gaze back on him, regarding Azul with a disarming sort of warmth that had him consider retreating deeper inside the hoodie.
It lasted only a moment, after which Jamil let out a loud sigh and turned around. “Well, since it can’t be helped, I suppose we’ll have to make up for those tomorrow at lunch break.”
Tomorrow at lunch break.
A rush of energy darted up his spine, chasing away whatever spell of modesty had taken hold of him and leaving him almost dizzy with elation.
He just needed to make sure of one single, tiny detail.
Azul scrambled off the ground, hand already unholstering his pen. “Wait, so you’re accepting my offer? Or should I consider this to be a supplement to our previous agreement, for the moment being?”
Jamil, who had just started walking away, let out a pained groan and quickened his pace. “So annoying— let’s just go. I don’t want to be held responsible if you fall asleep on your broom during the test.”
“But—”
“Give it up or I’m taking everything I’ve said back.”
Azul’s retort dissolved into a resigned sigh.
Although Azul’s business had been operating for less than two years, he had dealt with enough difficult clients in his lifetime that he had developed a knack for distinguishing at a glance between those that needed an extra push and those who wouldn’t take kindly to persistent prodding, and while Jamil fell within both categories, Azul had an inkling that this time he was leaning more towards the latter.
As he slid the pen back through one of the loops on his belt, he couldn’t help but shift his gaze from the retreating back of his classmate back to the overarching sky.
He hadn’t been joking when he made that declaration of intent. No matter how many falls he had to endure, how many years it’ll take— Azul would never stop climbing until he could achieve everything he set his mind to. Even if he had to leave something behind in the process.
A low vibration brought him back to the present. Azul pressed the upper button of his phone, fetched his broomstick and started leisurely strolling after his classmate, a smile playing on his lips.
“Jamil-san!” he called, “Does this mean you’ll let me borrow your hoodie until the end of the school day?”
Azul watched as the vice housewarden froze in his tracks, the momentum sending him stumbling forward in an almost comical fashion. But in the end it was still Jamil — nimble, resourceful, exceptional — he was dealing with, and all he had to do was twist his body and pivot on the ball of his foot to prevent the fall.
Without breaking a sweat he turned towards Azul, the locks of hair dangling in front of his face adding to his delectably murderous look, and swiftly yelled back: “Over my dead body!”
And as he raised a hand to stifle his chuckle, as the ever-present ache in his fingertips spread to his chest, as he glanced back at the sky one more time before walking through the broom storage door with Jamil, Azul realized he might have, possibly for the first time in his life, underestimated the extent of his own greediness.